


Ghost Drifts

by alphaenterprise



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Gen, Ghost Drifting, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Canon, Pre-Slash, bonding over giant robots, kinda??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-21
Updated: 2014-02-21
Packaged: 2018-01-13 06:15:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1215718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alphaenterprise/pseuds/alphaenterprise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He is metal and he is flesh, towering two hundred and fifty feet above the dirt beneath his toes and the seawater that makes the hydraulics in his spine itch, and the blood on his hands is a noxious blue and smells like iron.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghost Drifts

**Author's Note:**

> cross posted from my tumblr (alphajaeger) as i realized that i hadn't posted this to ao3 at all OOPS.
> 
> for -lokeloke- on tumblr, who gave me the prompt: _Hurt/Comfort Chaleigh! Chuck and Raleigh might have met earlier, maybe Yancy didn't die and they got some missions together with the Hansens. So cocky Raleigh meets young cocky Chuck and they get on like water and oil. Except one time when Raleigh catches Chuck after a drop and the younger pilot is all hurt and delirious, cuz Chuck feels Eureka even after the Drift is over, some ghost pain like it's him who's been clawed at by a Kaiju and then pulled apart by a j-tech crew afterwards. <333_
> 
> i played fast and loose with the timeline (obviously!) and i'm messing with their ages because in the film, Chuck is 21 and Raleigh is 26 (ish, because i have a lot of issues with the timeline and whatnot but ANYWAY (don't get me started down that road omfg)) and if i aged one of them down and kept the difference the same, then Chuck would be like.. 16/17 and yeah
> 
> basically Raleigh is in his early 20s and Chuck is maybe like 18/19 idek ROLL WITH IT OK

Chuck exits Striker Eureka's conn pod just moments after Herc does, and his father is whisked away just as quick as can be. It isn't like he notices though, because his arms are still metal and hydraulics and pistons and he feels blood on his skin that isn't his. He stumbles back into the conn, clunking around in his drivesuit and seeing half of the Shatterdome and half in orange hexagonal visors.

 

His spine feels like it's on fire and he's shaking and shuddering and his fists clench and unclench over and over. There are Kaiju behind his eyes, in his nose, caught in his throat, and the acrid blue blood feels like tar and poison on his metalskinflesh. His elbow joint sparks and aches like nothing has before, sending pain lancing up the entirety of his arm in spiderwebbed circuit patterns that make sense in numbers and binary code that he doesn't ever remember learning. Talons dig into his head and teeth split his skull and he feels the burn of acid and the pain of splitting skin and bone and instead, there is heat and the scent of metal that has been heated to a temperature that makes it smell like blood and -

 

"Hansen." A painfully American, painfully loud voice scrapes like claws rending metal on his ears, and Raleigh is leaning his hip on the doorway to the conn pod like he owns the goddamn thing. His jaw is set, infuriatingly, in the cocky expression that is always scrawled on his face, and he's missing the top half of the thick shell of the white American drivesuit. His boots are too loud, too loud against the metal grate of the docking walkway and it makes Chuck bare his teeth and wobble when he squares his shoulders, "Why the hell - "

 

"Get the fuck outta my conn pod, Becket." Chuck snaps, and he feels like the wing struts flex in response to his burgeoning anger. He is an amalgamation of mechanics and skin and he feels like his fingers are rusty and his elbow won't stop aching and one of his thighs feels like he's been dragged across especially rough asphalt.

 

Raleigh studies him silently and his expression morphs into something unreadable and studious, and it lights a fire in Chuck's heart. The bastard is judging him, criticizing him, assuming bullshit about him, and it burrows beneath his skin that is already burning and burning and

 

Raleigh recognizes a ghost drift when he sees one, despite what the techs tell him about them being completely non-existent, and it makes him balk. Chuck Hansen is a bastard on the best of days, bristly and arrogant and a pain in the ass with issues that Raleigh is dutifully keeping a list of. But he's hurting, and his posture is so off-kilter that it makes Raleigh's body wince in sympathetic, phantom pain. Chuck's back is bowed and he lists to the right, and his arm hangs loosely at his side as if broken. His head is tilted to the same side as his body sways, and with the way one of his eyes squints and his eyebrows draw together, his head is probably throbbing worse than the rest of it.

 

It fills him with a dosage of pity, perhaps, that tastes more like sympathy, because it's one of the worst feelings that exist in the world. Chuck's brain is stuck in the machine, and Raleigh hazards a glance towards the top of the conn to confirm his suspicion when he sees the massive dent that impacts the topmost left side. Pilots don't leave pilots, and there is more loyalty to the PPDC than to an individual's country that makes them a strange sort of family down to the furthest straws. Chuck wouldn't leave him to flounder, no matter how much they needle each other, and Raleigh isn't below leaving Chuck to do the same.

 

"Hansen," Raleigh tries again, backs up grudgingly at the seething look that he gets in return, "Chuck. Ditch the suit."

 

"I’m not wearing any goddamn suit." Chuck snaps, and Raleigh's lip thin in distaste at the level of immersion. The Australian wobbles, righting himself by heavily planting one of his feet and having his knee buckle before managing to catch himself.

 

"Come on." He tries to remember how he's called Yancy back, how Yancy has called him back, and how yancyraleigh has called raleighyancy back when they've both been stuck in the ghost drift before. He puts something warm in his voice, or as warm as he can manage while talking to Chuck, and feels the back of his brain itch when Yancy's mind subconsciously brushes against his from across the Shatterdome. "Hey, your arm hurts doesn't it?"

 

This makes Chuck stop in his tracks, wobbly as he is, and his gaze snaps to meet Raleigh's eyes with the precision and focus of a laser. There is something mechanical and robotic, in the way his head tilts, and Raleigh can just imagine the quiet whir and hiss of pistons.

 

"And your back hurts, and so does your head?" the blonde continues, relaxing his stance as he takes steps into the conn pod. Chuck blinks rapidly, and Raleigh sees remnants of his past ghost drifts in the rigidity of the Australian's posture. There are ones and zeroes that clatter around Chuck's brain and Raleigh knows that Chuck is two hundred someodd feet tall all in the same instant that he isn't, and that he can't center himself worth a damn. To be swept into a ghost drift so soon out of the academy with only bullshit 'it isn't real, don't listen to the other pilots' speeches and classes to prepare him must be hell, and the arrogance that the kid puts on isn't detestable enough to warrant abandonment in a situation like this.

 

"How th'fuck d'you know that?" comes the waspish reply, and Chuck's hand shoots out to hold tight to the back part of the pilot interface rigging when he begins to tip.

 

"Well, you're bleeding for one." Raleigh balks when Chuck loses his balance completely and slides gracelessly to the flooring with a clattering sound of drivesuit against metal that seems to trigger something in Chuck's drift-stuck brain. The younger pilot's arms shoot up to grasp his head, fumbling with the smooth edges of the helmet of his drivesuit helplessly. It's all angles in his mind, riveted metal that is nothing like the army green of the infinitely smaller suit helmet, and Raleigh disregards everything that he's learned from being around other pilots and gets into Chuck's personal bubble.

 

"Hey, hey, hey." He stills Chuck's arms with a steady grip on his biceps, voice low and gentle and warm as can be, and is latched onto with a grip so strong that it agitates the ache in his arms left by a particularly hard impact with the Kaiju prior. Chuck's breathing is staggered and raspy, and Raleigh hums something unidentifiable as he undoes the fastenings and pulls Chuck's helmet off with a careful touch. "Don’t be a bastard about this, man."

 

"Ffffffuuuuh - " Chuck tries, and there is blood smearing down the side of his face, dried and beginning to turn dark, that Raleigh reaches up to touch. In the searing orange of the conn's interface system, he can make out a glassiness in Chuck's eyes that is most likely connected to the muttered strings of words that are coming from his mouth and Raleigh finds a sigh working its way from his chest at the intensity of the memories that must have been dredged up. His first ghost drift made him smell smoke and hear the rasp of a breathing machine for at least a month, and he hasn't dare thrown insults at Chuck for anything past his enrollment in the jaeger academy because he isn't that much of a dick.

 

"It’s okay." Raleigh says softly, lowering himself to sit beside the younger pilot as quietly as he can. The circuitry suit pulls where it's still attached to his skin, but it's a minor annoyance when Chuck leans back into his touch like a starving dog and doesn't seem to realize the steady flow of tears that track down his face and make the dried blood turn a strange colour on his skin. "It’s okay. Y'know when they tell you in academy that ghost drifting isn't real and that it's some made up bullshit that the vet pilots tell you greenhorns?"

 

Chuck doesn't answer, but he leans completely against Raleigh so that he's all but climbed into his lap. He breathes raggedly every fifth or so inhale, like he's having difficulty, but the action is still steady as the tide and becomes more and more collected as the minutes drag. Something about Kaiju and claws and blueceruleannavyiceelectricity, and Raleigh can only imagine what Chuck is seeing in his mind's eye.

 

"Well they're a bunch a' liars," Raleigh continues easily, and puts an arm over Chuck's shoulders after a minute of debating. "Because ghost drifting is hella real, and it's really fucking hard to cope with if you don't do it right." He goes on, and on and on, and eventually segues into something about stars and draws invisible constellations on the shoulder of Chuck's drivesuit until,

 

"Did you just say hella?" Chuck asks with a frown that is less angry and more concerned that Raleigh had actually said that. "Did you just fucking say hella?" He blinks and is as reminiscent of an owl as anything Raleigh has ever seen in his life.

 

"Shut the fuck up, Jesus Christ." Raleigh huffs, and raps his knuckles against the Leo that he had previously pretended to draw on Chuck's shoulder while trying to avoid his ears' pinkening, "You gigantic asshole."

 

"You said it." comes the deadpan reply, but beneath the exhaustion in the corners is amusement, "I thought only Americans from California said hella."

 

"I’m about to beat the shit out of you." Raleigh groans, and Chuck snorts even as the j-tech crew begins to file in quietly and help them up onto feet that feel like pins and needles.

 

"Are you gonna beat the hella shit outta me, mate?" Chuck drawls, and for a moment, Raleigh feels like he's just harping on the same point to be a dick about it until the Australian glances back for nary a second. His expression is years younger and the harsh lines on his face created by his anger fade for a moment, and Raleigh offers him a grin that is mostly friendly and somewhat sympathetic in response.

 

He feels grateful.


End file.
